Due to the wide spread use of controlled substances or narcotics such as morphine, cocaine, amphetamines, tranquilizers, synthetic analgesics, and the like, it has become desirable to institute drug testing of athletes and others which are engaged in an occupation involving a public trust or in which an injury can occur if the party is not completely alert. Testing of athletic teams, bus drivers, etc. involve large group testing which must be conducted quickly, accurately and inexpensively. A highly sensitive, easily-read test for the detection of narcotics such as heroin in urine would be extremely helpful in a drug program. Narcotic screening has become extensive practice in industry, business, the Armed Forces, schools and in the courts and prison systems. Such screening is used both as a pre-employment procedure and as a monitoring tool. The present methods for the detection of these basic narcotics in urine are relatively costly and time consuming and must, in general, be performed by qualified personnel in well-equipped laboratories. It would be highly desirable and useful to be able to carry out a quick test of the presence of such narcotics in urine by a person who is untrained in chemical laboratory manipulations and who does not have at his disposal the instrumentation and laboratory equipment required in the present methods. The validity of such a test method must have a sensitivity to morphine in urine of approximately 1 microgram per milliliter of solution and must not require more than 23 to 50 milliliters of urine.
Clarke, "Isolation and Identification of Drugs", The Pharmaceutical Press, London, 1969, pp 431-432, which is herein incorporated by reference discloses chemical reagents which can be utilized in the detection of common narcotic substances.